Goldfish have no memory

I've just spent an hour scrubbing my apartment of the rice and floor-mashed bananas and cheese bits and heaps of laundry and dislocated keys and all of the other residue of the lovely, too-short, sweatily chaotic visit of my sister and her family. My nieces are absolute delights, M and her husband calm amused parents, Loopy eating up all of my unwanted ice cream, all of us constantly shoveling food into the gaping piehole of my sweet grubby two year old niece. The four of them slept puppy-like in my silly blow up bed, Mica protected by a little boxy frame, M clinging to the side of the bed.

It was good to have them here in my place, and they left a mess and in the most indie girl fashion, I've spent an important decompressing hour with loud music and lusty wailing about loss and hope with cleaning tools in my hands. Ani DiFranco really knows how to capture that "little plastic castle/is a surprise every time" sensation about how we navigate life, loves, dreams, work that we strive for. The gleeful, eager greeting of the incandescence of new connection, the crumpling of the bruising moments, the surprise anew when what follows is difficult even when we know what to expect.

M and I had a good conversation about the role of a partner in one's life, about how it's more than just about domesticity, but also about the continuity of conversations like the one about the dilemma about voice/disclosure in my blog. I think I was partnered for so long I still need to keep learning about how to be content when these stories are more distributed, more dispersed, through my willow-branch-strong network. Like my learning, like my life in so many ways, I'm in community, not in a dyad or always in face to face connection. I keep learning about that from my so graceful long-time single friends, like M-who-was-in-Rwanda, like S, like J.

The real trick for me, I think, is to be present to where I am, content with what is. Listen to the silly reassuring earnest reggae, the prana of the yoga mat and the grounding of my feet, no restless mind about what *could* happen, no endless checking of email.

The probable-ending of my more-hope-than-real-relationship can certainly be traced out in Lucinda Williams and Ani and Tori and Liz and all of the other open yearning sometimes-angry grrls. But I'm 41, not 24, and the path forward doesn't have to be full of drama. Pluck Growing-up-Skipper (whom I dressed and redressed for Lulu about 50 times, after teaching her to say "Skipper, I'm sorry I pulled your head off") off the lamp. Put away the piles of towels and sheets and napkins. Turn off the lights that Lulu turned on with the dimmer remote. Scrub the counters. Go for a run. Finish editing the proposal chapter I wrote yesterday. Nap before D's party tonight. Take the skyline, my neighbourhood, the restorative energy of the now into my cells. Scan Nerve and summon up openness to diversion.

And besides -- what the HELL does "peel out the watchword" mean anyway? Definitely too old to be a real indie-grrl :-).